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Ryder Cup Sunday singles: JT vs. Rory to start

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France – Both Ryder Cup captains clearly used the same philosophy with their respective singles lineups: Start with firecrackers and hope it spreads to the rest of the team.

Of course, since Europe has a 10-6 lead, the missions are completely different. Jim Furyk hopes his American team throws a bunch of red on the leaderboard early so that it can quickly build momentum in its attempt to match an all-time comeback. European captain Thomas Bjorn wants to win as many matches as he can early so the ones near the end don’t much matter.

The first match? Rory McIlroy vs. Justin Thomas.

“We want to get out to a fast start tomorrow,” Furyk said late Saturday at Le Golf National. “That’s key. It’s imperative. Everyone knows it. Any time a team’s come back – now twice in this event from 4 points ­– it’s been a fast start and a solid middle-to-late part of the lineup.

“I went with this group of guys in this order because I think it covers all the way through the order,” Bjorn said. “I’m happy with the way it looks. Listen, if you look at the right side of this, you know, that American lineup was always going to be extremely strong, and it doesn’t matter. We need to win our points.”